Israeli troops came under attack from guerrillas Monday as Lebanon celebrated its 50th anniversary as an independent nation.

No casualties were reported in the attack on Tallousah in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon where an Israeli armored platoon is based.But the hostilities underlined the shakiness of Lebanon's independence with troops from foreign armies still stationed on its territory after two civil wars and two Israeli invasions.

Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iranian-backed guerrillas of Hezbollah, or Party of God, attacked Tallousah with mortar fire shortly before a military parade got under way in Beirut.

The parade was held under tight security at a crossing that was a no man's land during the 1975-90 civil war, dividing Beirut's western and eastern sectors. Thousands of people were killed by sniper fire or shelling on the crossing from Christian and Muslim militias.

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Monday all approaches were sealed off by troops and police. People watched on balconies from a distance, or on television, as jet-fighters swooped and columns of tanks and armored personnel carriers rumbled past.

"This is the real hope for us, I mean for the people," said Samira Yazbeck, a 26-year-old Maronite Catholic schoolteacher as she pointed to the parading troops. "Without them, peace and reconstruction cannot be safeguarded."

Since the end of the civil war, commanding Gen. Emile Lahoud has restructured the army on a non-sectarian basis and boosted its number from 37,000 to 45,000, including 12 combat brigades each made up of 2,500 Muslim and Christian soldiers.

Lebanon was part of the Ottoman Empire until World War I. It came under French mandate in 1920 and gained independence in 1943. The eruption of the civil war in April 1975 has left the country with 70 percent of its territory under Syrian control and 10 percent under Israeli occupation.

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